Make no mistake, he--and it--are every bit as dangerous as Iran's Grandiose Ayatollah:

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan called Zionism a "crime against humanity" likening it with anti-Semitism, fascism, and Islamophobia while speaking at a UN forum on Wednesday. Erdogan was speaking Wednesday before a Vienna forum of the Alliance of Civilizations, a UN framework for West-Islam dialogue.

UN Watch urged UN chief Ban Ki-moon who was present on the stage yet stayed silent, according to UN Watch, to speak out and condemn the speech. It also called on Erdogan to apologize...

You can urge all you want, UN Watch, but Hades will freeze over before that happens.

When Obama deigns to grace the Jewish state with his presence in coming weeks, he will no doubt try to pressure Netanyahu to restart "peace" talks the PA. But since, as per this report, the two strands of Palestinian leadership are doing their utmost to try to reconcile (so they can focus on their common goal of terminating Jewish sovereignty over Israel), that would be, in a word, insane:

Hamas is attending the board meeting of the Yasser Arafat Foundation for the first time at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo on Thursday.

Hamas deputy politburo chief Moussa Abu Marzouq will address the foundation's board of trustees for its sixth meeting, attended by league secretary-general Nabil al-Arabi, the head of the foundation Nasser al-Qidra told Ma'an news agency.

Abu Marzouq will brief the foundation about reconciliation, al-Qidra said.

Fatah leader Azzam al-Ahmad will also address the conference.

"My brother Moussa Abu Marzouq and I will submit a report regarding what we have reached with reconciliation and the importance of accomplishing it as soon as possible," he said...

"Politburo chief"? And here I though politburos were retired when the Berlin Wall came down. Who knew that Hamas, the Gaza branch of the Muslim Brotherhoood, was keeping the Soviet tradition alive?

We're angered the sleepy beast by exposing him to the savage tongue of Jon Stewart, among others, and now the roused one will likely take his revenge.In fact, these dire and kooky predictions say a lot more about the people making them--hello, J Streeters!--than they do about Hagel the Horrible (horrible was he before the withering ridicule; horrible he remains).

Because simple tolerance, mere tolerance, is not enough. We need genuine and deep respect for each and every human being notwithstanding their thoughts, their values, their beliefs, their origins.

These words, spoken by Justin Trudeau during a moving eulogy for his late father, resonated deeply with Canadians, for they spoke to our shared humanity. Given recent flashpoints of aboriginal self-assertion, linguistic tensions in Quebec and the growing income divide, it is a message worth revisiting.

Todd L. Pittinsky of Stony Brook University, currently a senior lecturer at Harvard, and author of Us Plus Them, has studied the dual concepts of recognizing and embracing differences. He has coined the term “allophilia” to describe positive intergroup dynamics that supersede tolerance.

He believes that current anti-racism/diversity training programs do not tap in to the latent potential of individuals to develop strong bonds with those outside their own “group.”

These programs are often ambivalent about differences. He recalls attending a corporate diversity training session in which the first slide, “Diversity Is Our Strength,” was contradicted by a later slide, “We Are All the Same.” They also ignore scientific research about innate allophilic characteristics, and the strong interpersonal cohesion that develops from them...

And let's not forget "Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad," and "All Animals are Equal, But Some Animals are More Equal Than Others," both of which are similarly ideological innately allophilic and built strong inter-animal cohesion. (Question for Sheema re her "my-Freudian-slip-is-showing" word choice: does allophilia "supersede" tolerance in the same way that Islam "supersedes" Christianity and Judaism?)

Update: To be clear, "allophilia" is intended to elevate the "group" at the expense of the individual and individuality. Sounds a lot like life under sharia to me.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Wow, that decade went quickly. Should you care to commemorate ten years since the death of this great "humanitarian" (and I suggest we all brace ourselves for it), mark your calendar with a red "Z" (for Zionism, of course):

On March 16, 2003, American activist, Rachel Corrie, age 23, was run over and killed by an armoured Israeli bulldozer in Gaza while protecting a home from demolition. In the 10 years since much has changed and much has stayed the same. But we cannot forget Rachel's burning love for people and sense of justice. She inspired many with her action, words and ultimate sacrifice. We remember Rachel with a screening of the film, Rachel, made in 2009 by acclaimed filmmaker, Simone Bitton, who also made the much-loved film, As the Land is the Language (1997), about the Palestinian poet, Mahmound Darwish.

The premiere was at Berlin Film Festival in February 2009. "Rachel is an in-depth cinematic investigation into the death of an unknown young girl, made with a rigor and scope normally reserved for first-rate historical characters. It gives voice to all the people involved in Rachel’s story, from Palestinian and foreign witnesses to Israeli military spokespersons and investigators, doctors, activists and soldiers linked to the affair. The film begins like a classic documentary, but soon develops, transcending its subject and transforming into a cinematographic meditation on youth, war, idealism and political utopia. In the beginning, there is this: she was called Rachel Corrie. She was 23. She was convinced that her American nationality would be enough to make her an effective human shield, that her simple presence would save lives, olive trees, wells and houses." from catalogue Berlinale Film Festival 2009...

She also thought she could best a heavy metal machine, and that her Palestinian darlings were nothing more than innocent victims of dastardly Jews. Ten years on, her death seems as pointless as ever, and her hagiographers just as clueless as they were back when this tragic accident unfolded.
﻿

The "saint" in happier days, showing Palestinian moppets how to torch an American flag.

Canada has graduated as the consummate colonial success story, and has now moved smoothly into its postmodern role as ‘supporter of human rights’ -- not by promoting disinterested NGOs and providing lots of funding, but via invasion, exploitation and/or subterfuge at home and abroad. This should come as no surprise, where the indicator for success in economics and politics is not fairness and consensus, but profit and engineered majority-rule.

Oh, sure, you can go ahead and prosecute those scary Nazis (who threaten you not at a whit); as per today's Supreme Court ruling, that sort of "detestation" won't be tolerated in Pierre's multiculti Trudeaupia. But if you think you're going to be protected from the Zionhass emanating from leftist, Khomeinist and Wahhabi quarters, the sort on display here (during the Grandiose Ayatollah's annual trash Israel Day, which, go figure, is protected by our laws), and here (an Israeli "apartheid" rant) you are sadly, no, tragically, mistaken.

Just heard the bad news on Sun TV (no Internet links as yet). The usual censorious suspects will no doubt be doing their happy dance. For those of a more Miltonian bent, however, this is a very dark day indeed.

MANCHESTER – In a move to break barriers between followers of the two faiths, two Islamic and Jewish schools have twinned in the British city of Manchester to help promote a better understanding between Muslims and Jews in the country.

"It allows, if nothing else, the new generation to see each other in a good light," Tahira Parveen, head of Religious Studies at Manchester Islamic High School for Girls, told the BBC News Online.

"These are the young people who will be the teachers and leaders of the future. I think links like this are very important."

The Islamic school has twinned with the Jewish King David High School in Crumpsall.

Under the project, students from the two schools will exchange visits to better know each others.

Joined lessons are also planned to help promote a better understanding of the two communities.

As part of the project, a group of ten Muslim pupils attended a class at the Jewish school, where they talked about their religion.

The students also used the visit to explain the meaning behind wearing hijab and the Muslim prayers.

They also replied to questions by Jewish students about the weekly Friday prayers and the mixing between males and females in Islam.

"We have two communities that have so much in common," said Rabbi Benjamin Rickman, head of religious education at King David school...

Alas, it was hard to hear him utter the patently untrue mealy-mouthed banality feel-good statement, standing as he was like this.

For starters, Mr. Trudeau has about the same amount of experience as Stephen Harper did when he sought the Alliance Party leadership in 2002. Mr. Harper was roughly the same age and had served about the same number of years in Parliament. Mr. Trudeau was a teacher. Although Mr. Harper likes to call himself an economist, he wasn’t. He had a graduate degree in economics but no real job experience in the discipline. He did have some executive experience as head of a small right-wing lobby group, the National Citizens Coalition, and as policy director for the Reform Party.

But to argue that he was better prepared would be to forget a big advantage Mr. Trudeau has over everyone in the experience department. You want political seasoning? How about being raised since birth in the cauldron of power? How about living all your early life at 24 Sussex Dr., son of a prime minister?

I wouldn't go there if I were you, Larry, because of this sad-but-true reality: Despite having been raised in a "cauldron of power" (sounds uncomfortable; can you buy those things at Costco?) at the prime minister's address, how about it being obvious that you've inherited your mother's looks--and your mother's brains?

Six world powers ended two days of talks with Iran on its nuclear program without a breakthrough on Wednesday, but agreed to meet in Istanbul next month and resume negotiations in Kazakhstan on April 5.

The six powers - France, Germany, the United States, China Russia and Britain - offered at the talks to lift some sanctions if Iran scaled back nuclear activity that the West fears could be used to build a bomb.

Tehran, which denies seeking nuclear weapons, did not agree to do so and the sides did not appear any closer to an agreement to resolve a decade-old dispute that could lead to another war in the Middle East if diplomacy fails.

But Iran said the talks were a positive step in which the six powers tried to "get closer to our viewpoint", and Western diplomats had set their sights low, making clear that an agreement to meet again soon would be deemed a success.

In particular, they are aware that the closeness of Iran's presidential election in June is raising political tensions in Tehran and makes significant concessions unlikely.

"I hope the Iranian side is looking positively on the proposal we put forward," said European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who led the talks on behalf of the six powers. "We have to see what happens next."...

FYI, Cathy, with the Feckless Six having no qualms about being led down the garden path by fanatical twelvers, here's what happens next:

Today’s Canada is far different – generous, open, decent, humane. Multiculturalism is now an integral part of Canadian policy and diversity is encouraged. Yet at a moment when intolerance seems to be the global growth industry of the new century, the lessons of None Is Too Many should not be ignored. Immigration and refugee policies still divide Canadians. There remain significant pockets of discrimination and racism. Nazi war criminals and collaborators, thousands of whom were welcomed into this country immediately after the war, still live freely among us. Clearly, we still have much left to learn from our checkered past.

To our surprise, since its publication, None Is Too Many has taken on a life of its own.

We thought it would never be more than a disturbing piece of history describing a shameful period of the Canadian past. Instead, it has become an ethical yardstick against which contemporaneous government policies are gauged. We take pride that our book is often cited in debates over refugee and immigration policy and is often credited with helping make these policies more humane.

As always, though, a truer picture of what's what emerges in the Globe and Mail comments, many of which appear to be penned by immigrants from the Muslim world where Zionhass is akin to mother's milk. Their thoughts re Israel and Jewry elicit this response from another reader:

Abella should read comments here in the Globe.

The anti-jew and anti-Israel bias is frightening, especially knowing that it is coming from a demographic that is immigrating into Canada at a rapid pace, reproducing at a rate which is far higher than that of the population average, and through the Internet is closer culturally to their country of origin than to Canada.

And their children are more radicalized than the parents!

Abella no doubt knows what Jews in France, Britain, Brussels, Sweden, and other Europeans think about their future in those places thanks to massive third world immigration from countries where jews are hated above all others. There is no jewish future in Europe, much as there is no Christian future in the Middle East.

Does Abella believe that Canada will be any different in a generation? His feel good message may resonate with a previous generation, but to my generation it just sounds like he is hiding from the truth and running away from the fight.

Supremacists are not the irrational savages we have been so desperate for two decades to portray them as. Whether the jihad terrorizes by explosives, suffocates by the systematic subjugation of women and persecution of religious minorities in Islamic countries, or infiltrates by stealthily using liberty to undermine liberty in the West, the mission is always coherent and always the same: the imposition of sharia.

As the New York Times reported on Sunday, Organizing for Action hopes to raise $50 million, and its leaders—including former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina—are courting wealthy givers to fill the group's war chest. An elite group of donors giving or raising $500,000 or more is expected to cough up at least half of OFA's budget. Those top-tier donors, whose names OFA says it will voluntarily disclose quarterly (which goes beyond what most nonprofits disclose), will earn a spot on OFA's "national advisory board" and, more importantly, get to meet with Obama four times a year, according to the Times.

Bob Edgar, the president of Common Cause, said in a statement blasted out to reporters on Tuesday that Obama should push to have OFA shut down and should "disavow any plan" to meet with OFA's bankrollers. "With its reported promise of quarterly presidential meetings for donors and 'bundlers' who raise $500,000, Organizing for Action apparently intends to extend and deepen the pay-to-play Washington culture that Barack Obama came to prominence pledging to end," Edgar said. "Access to the president should never be for sale.

How easy, and how simplistic, to brand as "racist" those who dare to defy Jewish "progressives" and ask questions about whether such immigration is a good thing for Canada. Why, how could it not be a net good, given that Roma, like Jews, were reviled and liquidated by the Nazis. But just because way back when we were, you should pardon the expression, oven-buddies, does that mean that all Roma who want to should be welcomed in with open arms? And are those who have questions about such a reception really and truly "racist"?The answer to both, of course, is no. Fact is, the hesitations are borne of concern re Roma criminality and a reluctance to bring it here. An article from 2010 in, of all places, the Guardian, expresses some of these genuine--and I would contend non-"racist"--concerns, here specifically in the context of France:

(S)ome of the fault for the problems surrounding France's Roma communities lies
with the governments in Romania, Bulgaria and the other countries where the Roma
are coming from. If more policies to bring the Roma into the mainstream had been
enacted in these places over the past few decades, then Roma in 2010 may have
been less inclined to migrate, and when they did, they may have had more to
offer to the societies they migrate to. But can that failure to successfully
integrate be blamed entirely on the "host" countries? I'm not sure.

75% of Europe's Roma are estimated to live below the poverty line.
Discrimination – both institutional and societal – will play a meaningful part
in that figure, but it's also too easy to construct a narrative where the Roma
are seen solely as passive victims, and much of the recent coverage of the
expulsions (and some of the EU rhetoric) has tended towards that. It may be
worth asking how Roma communities can contribute to their own progress.

There's no doubt that deep-seated prejudices towards Roma need to be tackled,
and at least Sarkozy's actions have pushed the issue further up the EU agenda.
But Europe's Roma also need to take some of the responsibility for their own
integration into the mainstream, and this may mean letting go of some historical
and cultural practices.

Rightwing voices will always be able to point to the criminality and social
problems that Roma communities bring – because they do. The underlying causes
may be complex, but the manifestations are not

I have nothing against any immigrant or refugee from any country who wants to come to Canada through legal channels in order to escape persecution, and who wants to contribute something of value to our society. I have no interest in bringing to our shores those who hate the West, despise America and "Zionists," or who are crooks, thieves, and scam-artists who know that merely by playing the Holocaust victim card they can get some lost-in-the-Holocaust Jewish "human rights" simpletons to go to bat for them.Simple as that, really.

Times of Israel – When he visits Israel next month, US President Barack Obama will tell Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that a “window of opportunity” for a military strike on Iran will open in June, according to an Israeli TV report Monday evening.

Obama will come bearing the message that if diplomatic efforts and sanctions don’t bear fruit, Israel should “sit tight” and let Washington take the stage, even if that means remaining on the sidelines during a US military operation, Channel 10 reported. Netanyahu will be asked to refrain from any military action and keep a low profile, avoiding even the mention of a strike, the report said, citing unnamed officials.

In other words, let us handle it (shades of the era of Israelis "taking it for the team" when Saddam hurled his scuds into ha-aretz. Dare the Jews trust Obama to come through for them? Obama, who wants Islamophiles Brennan and Hagel to play key roles in defending the Nation? I say, sure, give this most radical leftists of presidents your trust, but only if, half in love with easeful death, the appeal of trying to earn Obama's approval--a mugs game if there ever was one--exceeds the instinct for self-preservation. Alas, in Israel today, it's not at all clear which of the two--the desire to earn plaudits from Obama, or the impulse to survive, and to live and fight another day--is the stronger.I realize it's hardly feasible, but my instinct would be to not allow the U.S. to dictate when said window can and cannot be opened. And, further, to understand that, whatever honeyed malarkey he's purveying at the time, it is evident that this president does not have our back--never has, never will. The solution, therefore, is drastic but likely to be effective: shut the window so that Barack Influenza cannot fly in, and open it only if and when you believe the time is right for Israel to act.

The Supreme Court of Canada is scheduled to issue a ruling Feb. 26 on a big “hate speech” case, reports The National Post. Based on the oral argument, which took place in 2011, Canada’s high court is expected to narrow the definition of “hate speech” and widen the territory of freedom—which to this American sounds all to the good.

Canada has no First Amendment, and “hate speech” is a legal offense there. But what is hate speech? For the law, it is like defining obscenity: it is speech that gives people a certain feeling. Or, as Canada’s law says, provokes “unusually strong and deep-felt emotions of detestation, calumny and vilification.”

A feeling in one person? A hundred persons? A million persons? And how do you measure the feelings?

The case at hand is about William Whatcott, an anti-gay pamphleteer from Saskatchewan. He was arrested for passing out pamphlets in 2000 and 2001 that referred to gays as sodomites and child molesters. The Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal found him guilty in 2005 and ordered him to pay $17,500 to the people who complained.

He appealed and made it all the way to Canada’s supreme court.

What do you do with a sleazeball like that? My answer is: let him pass out his pamphlets. Take his pamphlet and toss it. Don’t make a federal case out of him; you only make him famous. Ignore him.

Instead the Canadian state has made Whatcott a national figure: a bad idea.

A man like that should be denounced. Shunned. But dragging him into court goes against the tradition of English law that is the ancestor of both the U.S. and Canadian systems...

Tradition? We here in Canada spit on your tradition, for, tender-hearted souls that we are, we cannot bear the idea of anyone having to suffer the indignity, the enormity, of hurt feelings. To quote my 14-year-old son's teacher once again: "We have free speech in Canada--unless it impinges on the rights of others." And, typical "progressive" that he is, that's fine with him.

It would appear to be a case of "out of the frying pan, into the fire," but, as Bruce Bawer points out, there is reasoning of a sort behind the flight:

a new report by a Jewish community group, Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive (SPCJ), says that anti-Semitism in that country has gotten so much worse in the wake of last year’s Toulouse school massacre that the number of Jews who are “crossing the Channel to find safe haven in the U.K.” is skyrocketing. One sign of the trend: “St John’s Wood Synagogue in London has set up a separate French minyan, attended regularly by 120 people on Shabbat,” with new faces showing up every week. A February 21 piece in the Jewish Chronicle about the SPCJ report noted that while anti-Semitic “incidents” in Britain and France are roughly comparable in number, thosein France “are far more likely to involve violence.” It also quoted Britain’s Chief Rabbi as warning that “the position of Jews in Europe today is very difficult….Jews in Europe have begun to ask, is there a place for us here?” Perhaps the most telling detail in the Jewish Chronicle article was this: while the SPCJ report “originally stated that in over three-quarters of the antisemitic incidents the perpetrators were reported as being of North African origin,” this fact was later deleted from the text.

Quelle surprise, as they say in France (when they are not at all surprised).

Monday, February 25, 2013

If Barack Obama has hosted the Oscars instead of Seth Whatsisname, he wouldn't have sung "We Saw Your Boobs." He'd have sung this:

I'm reviewing the sequestration.Why'd we have to go and instigate those cuts?Now we have trials and tribulationsAnd a recession's looming--crap!What were we--nuts?We must forestall that day of reckoning,Catastrophe is beckoning.We won't accept GOP guff,Can't emphasize that fact enough.They're rich and bad and mean you ill.How many people will they kill?Whereas my fellow Democrats Are laying out the welcome matsFor people who can't see what's clear--Our debt is in the stratosphere...I think I'd better think it out again!

Eddie Haskell was the real star of the 50s classic TV series “Leave It to Beaver.” Eddie constantly stirred up trouble, blamed the hapless Beave and Wally when things went wrong, but whose misdeeds were found out in the end by Ward and June Cleaver. That was a different day and age, but the Eddie Haskells are still with us, and they are in very high places.

Barack Obama is our first “Eddie Haskell President.” He stirs up mischief, for which he blames the rascally Republicans, while professing his own innocence or non-involvement. He levitates above the fray while his operatives do the dirty work. He offers grand bargains, then moves the goal posts, and blames his jilted adversaries for obstructionism. He extracts costly concessions and then berates the conceders for not giving enough. He promises a post-racial society but conducts a campaign of class warfare. Wall Street bonuses and Cayman accounts disqualify opponents but are “not important” for his own nominees.

Our media is supposed to play the sensible Ward and June Cleaver in exposing such antics, but it acts instead as Eddie’s accomplices and enablers. Where are Ward and June when we really need them?

Bob Woodward’s Obama’s sequester deal-changer reveals an Eddie-Haskell aka President Obama at the top of his game as he a) proposes the sequester, b) blocks corrective legislation, c) wipes away his fingerprints, and d) berates the Republicans for their “meat cleaver” bill that will ruin the economy and wreak chaos on the lives of millions...

America's biggest problem is that, unlike June Cleaver, no fool she, it can't see through "Eddie's" suckuppery and tell him to "cut the crap."Sigh (and to reiterate): Where's June Cleaver when you really need her?

If you thought that the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of raging capitalism in China, and the slow crumble of Castro's revolution meant the death of Marxism, you thought wrong. Reports of its demise are wildly premature. In fact, its vital signs are stronger than ever, following the financial system's cataclysm of 2008.

Karl Marx's tool kit is newly in vogue: copies of his Das Kapital are reportedly flying off the shelves in Germany. A Japanese cartoon version was a publishing sensation. And a song and dance musical rendition wowed them in Shanghai. Even Pope Benedict had good words for the "intellect and analytical skillls" of the godless Marx, while condemning the world he helped usher in. Just this week, disciples blew out 165 birthday candles for The Communist Manifesto.

The resurging interest in Marxism is hard to gauge, and there are serious limits to nostalgia for old-style communist regimes. But Marxists are feeling vindicated by Karl's long view...

Yeah, old Karl really had a handle on things, didn't he?

Update: A song from Das Kapital, the musical:Lenin and Stalin and a cat named MaoRuined their nations with Karl's thoughts--and how!Castro in Cuba and other offshoots.These are a few of Karl's bitterest fruits.When the Ceeb sneers,Academe stews,Barry O doth bitch,We simply remember disastrous old timesAnd cries of, "Let's soak the rich!"

"The one and a half day conference is a forum for an interdisciplinary discussion of the cultural, religious, historical and political meanings of the Muslim headscarf."

Titled "reorienting the Veil", the conference will be hosted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in partnership with Duke University.

Organizers say the eventaims at expanding the dialogue about the tradition of wearing the veil and the meaning of the hijab for Muslim women.

Participants will discuss why and how Muslim women wear the veil in a globalized and fashion-conscious world...

In other words, knowing that chicks' lowly status is Islam's Achilles heel (so to speak), participants tried to persuade everyone that the hijab is a symbol of empowerment, not oppression. In a globalized and fashion-conscious--but not an Islamized--world, that is. And if you believe that, you really are, you should pardon the expression, a head case.

The decay and decline of George Galloway was on full display in Oxford last night when he stormed out of a debate with a third-year PPE student from Brasenose College. The student’s crime was to be an Israeli, a discovery which led Galloway to declare: ‘I don’t debate with Israelis. I have been misled.’ He then got up to leave. ‘I don’t recognise Israel and I don’t debate with Israelis,’ Galloway said as he exited the room...

Rizvi told iPolitics Friday he met Kenney during the minister’s visit to the community centre. He said a small group of 10 people took part in a presentation. After the presentation, president of the ISIJ Aliraza Rajani gave the minister a tour of the community centre.

“The president just described the community centre. I talked about the centre. The minister gave a brief talk and then there was an opportunity for question, answers — about ten minutes,” said Rizvi. “The presentation … was about appreciating minorities and the Shia, especially from East Africa, that have migrated to this part of the world.”

Rizvi confirmed he is one of the founders of the Ahlul Bayt Assembly of Canada, a federation of Shia Muslim organizations in Canada.

Kenney’s director of communications Ana Curic said the minister was invited to the meeting.

“I think this government’s track record in relation to the Iranian government is clear,” said Curic. ”Minister Kenney was invited and attended a meeting to learn about the inter-faith programs and events in which they participate and attend, as well as their partnership with a nearby synagogue.”...

Those Khomeinists get a lot of mileage from this alleged partnership (which largely amounts to their sharing a parking lot). That enables them to claim that their beef is not with Jewry per se but with "Zionists." Mr. Kenney of all people should be wise to this tomfoolery, and should have given it as wide a berth as possible.

Why are Democrats willing to go to the mat for a Republican who has shown himself to be — what should we say? Not very impressive, at least in a confirmation hearing?

1) To make the Republican party look bad?

2) Because he is Obama’s choice, and Obama is the One?

3) Because he has expressed antipathy to Israel?

4) Because he has advocated almost the softest possible line toward Iran and its satellites (Hezbollah, Hamas)?

5) Because the conservatives are against him, and therefore the Left must be for him?

6) Because a Republican war hero is just the right man to preside over the gutting of the Defense Department?

Take your choice, or combine the answers you like. In any event, the American people did a very, very important thing on Election Day. Now they, and the world at large, will live with the consequences.

Not that they've come out against state censorship/Section 13: that would be, you know, too "out there" and right-wing-y. No, they're paying lip service to the concept by boldly and bravely...shucking their gotchies:

Twelve Canadian authors will be featured in the nearly-nude for the 2014 Bare It for Books calendar. They are:

January: Angie Abdou

February: Trevor Cole

March: Farzana Doctor

April: Dave Bidini

May: Miranda Hill

June: Daniel MacIvor

July: Yasuko Thanh

August: Terry Fallis

September: Sachiko Murakami

October: Vincent Lam

November: Saleema Nawaz

December: Yann Martel

They're doing it for a good cause too. Money raised from the calendar will go to PEN Canada, a free-speech advocacy group. Young says the organization perfectly exemplifies what Bare It For Books is all about.

"Authors bare their souls everyday on the page. This is a manifestation of that. They're physically baring it all. Free speech is very important," she said. "We're very lucky to have that in Canada and we're lucky to express ourselves the way we want. PEN is trying to make that a right for everyone."...

Newsflash for you, authors: we don't have that in Canada, at least not officially. So unless you're willing to stand up and condemn state censorship, do us all a favour and put your knickers back on.

OTTAWA - Senator Douglas Finley warns the passage of Bill C-304 to eliminate the anti-free speech Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act is “not a done deal.”
Conservative MP Brian Storseth’s private member’s bill to eliminate the vaguely worded Section 13 clause that deems communication “likely” to expose a protected group to hatred or contempt discrimination under the act passed the House of Commons last June.

Finley, the Conservative senator who is shepherding the bill’s passage through the Senate, said many pundits assumed the fight had been won then, leaving “a false impression.”

“This will receive opposition in the Senate, although we have a pretty large majority,” Finley said, noting that even some Conservative senators have spoken against it.
Bill C-304 is expected to go to a vote on second reading soon. Finley expects the bill to pass and go on to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs committee, which will receive witnesses.

“How long this will take is very largely a matter of the interest shown by outside witnesses to attend the hearings,” he said.

“The process can take anywhere from a matter of days to several months. It’s difficult to predict,” but the “issue provokes passion on both sides of the argument.”

Finley said he “would really like to see the passion warm up again, especially among those who are passionate against Section 13.”

Opponents of Bill C-304 “are rallying their side,” he said. “They know the battle’s not over with.”...

I say we stick a wooden stake into state censorship--and the useless Senate. ("Sober second thought"--ha! Airheads intoxicated by their own self-importance, more like.)

A Cree who wears a traditional coonskin cap he made himself, Dawood is a member of the James Smith First Nation in Saskatchewan. He is also a strident advocate of armed jihad.

At Toronto mosques, he has handed out hundreds of DVDs of lectures by Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born radical cleric who urged his followers to fight the “evil” West — until a Hellfire missile found him in Yemen.

“For us as Muslims, our religion teaches that we’re brothers and sisters,” said Dawood, 33, who said he feared repercussions if his last name was published. “You have to stand up for your brothers and sisters, you have to defend them.”

Young, Canadian-born and online, Dawood is the embodiment of the Islamist extremists the government has called a top national security concern. He is also a newcomer to his faith, having converted to Islam less than five years ago, when he was drunk and suicidal...

The Mr. Layton we see on screen is someone who never gives up and always stands up for what he believes in, whether that’s introducing a program to combat the spread of AIDS as a Toronto city councillor or deciding to fight an election campaign on a bum hip because he won’t be swayed by the odds stacked against him. There’s the occasional indication that not everyone agrees with him — the guy at Toronto council who tells him to “vote for SkyDome, you hippie!” when he opposed funding that project, for one — but if Layton ever encountered a political controversy in his life, and he did, it isn’t explored here. Instead, his opponents include a homophobe who throws a coffee on him over the AIDS program, the loudmouth city hall guy and a federal Conservative strategist — played by Erin Karpluk (from the CBC series Being Erica), but not modelled on a real-life Tory— who spends most of her time condescending to her NDP counterparts. At one point, when the NDP staffer Brad Lavigne warns her that her party shouldn’t underestimate his leader, you half expect her to pat him on his cute little head. (To be fair, her character is redeemed in the end, when she cries upon learning of Mr. Layton’s seriously ill health.)

You know it's fiction because in the real world it's NDP lefties who condescend to those who don't share their worldview, or their idiotic veneration/adoration of Happy (Ending) Jack.

Friday, February 22, 2013

In yesterday’s New York Times, [Thomas L.] Friedman did something we haven’t seen much of in that newspaper: tell the truth about the Brotherhood’s intentions and its ideological drive to transform Egypt.

February 14th is the day Founder of the Islamic Revolution Imam Ruhollah Khomeini issued the historic verdict declaring Salman Rushdie an apostate.

Rushdie, a British Indian novelist and writer was sentenced to death by Imam Khomeini for insulting Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, which was written in 1988 and sparked global protests by Muslims around the world.

Back in 1989 on the same day, Imam Khomeini's fatwa was issued to warn the Islamic governments and followers of other divine religions about a vicious media war started by Western regimes and the Zionists, with the imperialist United States topping the list.

According to sources, have (sic) the verdict been applied back then, no one would have dared to repeat blasphemous acts against religious sanctities and characters. Yet, during the past decade, there were repetitive attempts of insulting Islam, be it through burning copies of the Holy Quran, issuing and publishing sacrilegious cartoons and profane movies that offend either Islamic teachings or the person of Prophet Mohammad (pbuh).

Iranian MP, Mustafa Kavakebian, on this issue said "Everyone should know that insulting the sacred concepts of a huge population in the world will see a great punishment by the one who has committed it. Insulting to the sacred concepts is completely different from having freedom of speech. The Western governments by the excuse of speech freedom, shouldn't oppose Imam's fatwa.Because insulting the feelings of the majority of world's population is a crime against humanity."...

Everybody sing..."feelings, whoa, whoa, whoa, feelings....:

In case you think only Khomeinists and other hyper-sensitive Islamists feel this way, allow me to quote one of my son's teachers (my son is in Grade 9). Just the other day this teacher shut down a discussion in his classroom about free speech with this salvo: "We have free speech in Canada--as long as it doesn't impinge on the rights of others."That's more or less what the Khomeinists say, minus the "crime against humanity" stuff, of course.Update: Grandiose Ayatollah Hall and her censorious ilk are onside with this line of thinking, too.

As a Canadian looking on in bewilderment at the economic brinksmanship that passes for contemporary politics in the U.S. (fiscal cliffs galore and now the specter of a "sequestrapocalypse"), I have but one question for you Americans: What in tarnation are you guys playing at down there?

Thursday, February 21, 2013

LIMASSOL, Cyprus — In a little-noticed trial in a small courtroom here on Wednesday, a 24-year-old man provided a rare look inside a covert global war between Israel and Iran, admitting that he is an operative of the militant group Hezbollah, for which he acted as a courier in Europe and staked out locations in this port city that Israelis were known to frequent.

Breaking with the group’s ironclad discipline and practiced secrecy, the operative, Hossam Taleb Yaacoub, described being handled by a masked man he knew only as Ayman. He told of doing simple tasks at first: picking up a couple of bags in Lyon, France, taking a cellphone, two SIM cards and a mysterious package wrapped in newspaper from Amsterdam to Lebanon.

When he was arrested last July, he had a small red notebook with the license plate numbers of two buses ferrying Israelis to vacation spots in the vicinity.

He claimed that none of this was related to planning an attack, as prosecutors have charged. One of the plates, LAA-505, reminded him of a Lamborghini sports car, he said, while the other, KWK-663, reminded him of a Kawasaki motorcycle...

It's great that some folks have finally figured out that, re the UN, they aren't exactly getting value for their money. But given copious Western guilt as well as the OIC, the neo-caliphate, being the racket's largest voting bloc, I expect this to go nowhere:

Frustrated by the epic inefficiency, sprawling disorganization and free-spending of their money by the United Nations, a group of Western donor nations, including the U.S., has been meeting quietly to develop a strategy to rein in the world organization’s more than $20 billion a year in anti-poverty assistance – which even parts of the U.N. concede hasn’t done much to relieve poverty.

The donor group’s aim is to produce some kind of workable reform agenda for the bloated system that will actually achieve greater efficiency, less duplication and fragmentation of efforts, less corruption and a greater ability to see where their money actually goes.

So far, the would-be reformers are mostly trying to figure out how cost-efficient U.N. programs are, and what management tools the widely differing U.N. organizations can be pressed into adopting.

The U.N. organizations themselves — including such high-profile entities as the United Nations Development Program, UNICEF, the World Food Program, the World Health Organization and more than 30 others —are not invited to the meetings.

According to a document summarizing one of the closed-door sessions obtained by Fox News, the group of 17 reformer nations is aware that they have a long march ahead to reshape the chaotic U.N. system, make it more rational, or even more financially comprehensible...

The Sunni-Shiite fault line is nearly always explained in religious terms. Shiites are followers of Imam Ali, a cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad who died in AD 632. Ali was passed over thrice and became only the fourth caliph. Shiites went on to develop a distinct identity and theology. Today, they are about 15 per cent of 1.3 billion Muslims. The majority are Sunnis — followers of the Sunnah, the way of the Prophet. Extremist Sunnis believe the Shiites are not quite Muslim.

Despite their differences, though, the two sects have lived mostly in peace. Their clashes have nearly always been political. So, too, in Pakistan, where the rise of sectarianism is dated to two events in 1979: the Islamic revolution in (Shiite majority) Iran and the Soviet invasion of (Sunni majority) Afghanistan...

Their clashes are "political" you say? Well, of course they are. But then, so is sharia law: it is both religious and political, since Islam does not separate the two. Their clashes thus arise from a desire to see their brand of sharia law--the only acceptable sort, as they see it--in the driver's seat In that sense, it's all about power--who has it and who wants it. (Odd how Harpoon pretends that it's a one-sided animus, and that "extremist" Shiites don't loathe Sunnis every bit as much as they are loathed, and as much as both Sunnis and Shiites loathe other Muslims, like, say, the Ahmadiyyas.)

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

If anyone still doubts that European culture is suffering from a terminal sickness, and that the poison in its bloodstream is oozing out foully to pollute the atmosphere as it steadily disintegrates, what has happened to Lars Hedegaard stands as a graphic corrective.

Hedegaard, President of the Danish Free Press Society and The International Free Press Society, is the nearest thing to a quintessential European liberal. He is a heroic icon of the fight against tyranny. He believes in freedom of expression, life and liberty. He not only detests those who threaten to destroy those things, but has been prepared to stand up and be counted in the fight to defend them.

As such, he was reported speaking in his own home about child abuse and violence against women in Muslim culture. The day after these remarks were published, he stressed that his opinions were not intended to refer to all Muslims.

What then happened to him was the kind of nightmare associated with totalitarian regimes, and which I wrote about in 2011 here and here. He was put on trial in Denmark accused of hate speech and racism. He was unable to mount a defence, because under the Orwellian rules of the Danish legal system he was in effect convicted before his trial even took place. After a roller-coaster of a case in which verdicts went first one way and then the other, the Danish Supreme Court finally ruled that he was not guilty after all of hate speech and racism.

That, however, was not the end of the trials of Lars Hedegaard. Some two weeks ago, he answered his front door to a man in his twenties posing as a postman who fired a gun at his head and missed. Douglas Murray reported that 70-year old Hedegaard punched him in the head; the man dropped the gun, picked it up and fired again. The gun then jammed and the man ran off. According to Hedegaard, he looked like a ‘typical Muslim immigrant’. Hedegaard has had to leave his home for an undisclosed location under police protection.

The attempted murder of Lars Hedegaard for speaking out against Islamist violence has received virtually no public attention – except in Sweden. As reported here, several Swedish newspapers published wicked distortions about him in order to portray him entirely falsely as an acknowledged racist...

When the truth is deemed "racist," the patient is terminal, and there's no hope for recovery.

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About Me

Scaramouche is my nom de Web. My real name is Mindy G. Alter, and I like to think of myself as a free speecher with a sense of humour. My bailiwick: fighting on behalf of all the good things that free speech helps safeguard, and doing my utmost to highlight the malevolence and imbicilities of those who oppose freedom, whomever they may be.